The Flo Group provides recruitment software, payroll management systems, back office support solutions, and invoice funding to temporary recruitment agencies based in and supplying to the UK.
For a company like Flo, communication is essential. Many recruitment agencies may not be aware of Flo’s services at the early stage of setting up their agency, however this is the perfect time for them to onboard with Flo as they play a vital role in getting an agency up and running. It’s very important to get their brand name and service out to agencies when they recruitment agencies, amounting to hundreds each week initially set up.
To ensure optimal communication with prospective clients, Flo would send a mailer card with an envelope to newly incorporated agencies, amounting to hundreds each week.
Previously this communication process was all done by hand. This included writing the recipients first name in the card along with their full name and address on the envelope, stuffing the envelopes, adding the stamp, and then going to a post box on a Monday after work to post them. This process was time consuming and costly for the business to run.
Due to the time this all took, the company could only manage to do one weekly postal mailer, as to manage this daily would have been too time consuming, limiting their engagement reach.
With their audience base growing, the current process of managing this became no longer viable both in terms of money and staff time, resulting in the company seeking an alternative method of managing this process. The new process needed to save them valuable time, while delivering high-quality communications, as well as being flexible in its approach to creating and sending communications.
Julie Boden, Marketing Manager at Flo, was approached by Serena Schofield (Business Development Manager) at the Midland Business Network online expo in 2020. They discussed the company’s mailing requirements and Serena recommended CFH’s hybrid mail tool, Docmail, to assist with this.
Docmail is the secure hybrid mail solution that allows organisations of any kind to send their communications, without having to leave their desk. In just a few clicks users can send their important communications over to Docmail, where they are then printed, enclosed and dispatched the next working day.
Flo found moving to using Docmail at the time was an easy choice. The number of cards they needed to write and post was creeping up slowly and it was taking more time to produce and send them each week. During initial talks with Serena, Docmail’s offering seemed very straightforward, time saving, and ultimately much more efficient than their manual process.
Julie set up their account instantly and was offered free training. The training was virtual, involving Serena calling Julie online and sharing her screen, so she could show Julie how to use the system. Julie said that “The training process was easy to follow, Serena was very thorough and answered any questions we had at the time and any after the training had finished”.
When it came to sending their first mailing, they simply provided Serena with a digital version of their card design, where Docmail’s customer support team added a first name merge tag to the document. This was then sent back to Julie, who was able to upload the document to Docmail, along with their address list, where Docmail then pulled each name through and personalised each card. Julie could then proof the document that would be printed, before submitting the order.
By using Docmail, Flo were able to send their original mailer to newly registered temp recruitment agencies, as well as using the platform for a follow-up mailing piece.
Flo have since set up templates within Docmail’s library. This means that when they come to do an order, the document’s will already be in Docmail, so they can select it and move on, saving time and making the process that more efficient.
At the time this was a top-up credit account that suited their needs as they just topped it up when their credit was low. A top up account enabled them to add credit to their account, via card. They could add as much or as little as they liked, whenever they needed, and the credit went on instantly.
Flo said that the biggest benefit has been the time saved in producing and sending their communications. Docmail has saved them around one day a week, as it was taking Julie and her marketing assistant a large proportion of the day every Monday to get them written and posted. This has allowed them to invest their time in other ways to benefit their business, as they are able to complete the same task in a few minutes, meaning they are now freed up to do other important work.
By using Docmail, Flo can now send communications must faster, and a lot more frequently, helping them to be more proactive. Docmail has provided an efficient process that ensures communications land quickly.
As a result of saving so much time each week, it has also saved a considerable amount of money. Savings were also able to be found when it came to the communications themselves, with the average price of sending a Docmail card costing £1 including postage (plus VAT).
Docmail has meant Flo have received the above benefits, but haven’t had to sacrifice on any quality. It has provided them with easy to send, high-quality output for their communications.
Throughout the process, Flo have felt continually supported. “Docmail have been very supportive when we have needed help and advice. Not too long ago we updated our mailer design and were struggling to add the first name Merge Tag back into the design ourselves, after contacting Docmail for advice, they very helpfully added this in, in the correct font, and re-uploaded the design for us.” They found that communicating with Docmail was, and continues to be, great. They have always had a prompt answer regarding any questions or help they have needed with the platform.
“Docmail is a powerful marketing tool that allows us to send out traditional mail campaigns quickly and efficiently without skipping out on quality and personalisation.”
“Using Docmail has meant that we can get our postal campaign out quicker and more frequently than we ever could before. Prior to using Docmail, our campaign was considerably slower to execute due to our manual processes.
The whole process from start to finish is super organised and now takes us much less time and means we can now post our mailer daily instead of weekly, freeing us up more time to focus on other campaigns.
Personalisation is very important to us and the ability to add personalised fields within the PDF we upload, such as the contact’s first name in a font to match the design of our mailing, has helped us keep the level of personability we set out for back when we were handwriting our campaign.”
Julie Boden, Marketing Manager,
Flo Group
